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Firefox 2.0 has managed to slip in the shadow of the latest iteration of Mozilla's open source browser, namely Firefox 3.0. However, at least for the time being, version 2.0 is still alive and kicking, even if this situation will not be perpetuated in 2009, according to the official plans that the developer made available following the availability of Firefox 3.0. But until version 3.0 completely takes over the install base of its predecessor, Mozilla will continue to breathe life into Firefox 2.0. In this context, Firefox 2.0.0.16, the latest stability and security update for the open source browser is now available for download.

Mozilla failed to make the official announcement as of yet, but the latest release of Firefox 2.0 went live on the company's FTP servers and was confirmed at the Weekly Status Meeting on July 14, 2008. At that time, Mozilla indicated that Firefox 2.0.0.16 would go live in the afternoon of July 15, 2008. The fact is that the build is already up for grabs, designed to fix various issues with the browser, but being mainly a release focused on patching security vulnerabilities.

Firefox 2.0.0.17 is already in the works, and will take version 2.0 one step closer to its death. Mozilla plans to kill off support for Firefox 2.0 in mid December 2008. It is unclear at this point in time whether Mozilla will be capable of convincing the entire install base of the open source browser to jump to the latest version by the end of this year. Mozilla claims that it accounts for in excess of 180 million users worldwide, a figure supported by statistics from Net Applications which credits Firefox with a market share of 19.03%.

Although it also initially intended to kill Firefox 1.5 within six months of the release of version 2.5, Mozilla found itself postponing the cutoff of support for almost another half year following user feedback. It is bound that the situation will repeat itself with Firefox 2.0 and Firefox 3.0 which are credited with market shares of 16.13% and 1.15% respectively at the end of June, although version 3.0 went over 4.0% after launch. The last figures released from Mozilla at the end of June counted over 20 million downloads of Firefox 3.0 since the June 17 launch.

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Source: Softpedia